THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss.” -- Robert Browning .....................

Kit Woolsey reported this deal to the Daily Bulletin as a missed opportunity from the Grand National Teams event at the Atlanta Nationals last summer.

When North opens a Precision diamond, showing diamonds or a minimum balanced hand, East doubles and you, as South, end up not in the laydown six diamonds, but in three no-trump. When West leads a fourth-highest heart three, you have your work cut out to avoid turning your bad board into a catastrophe.

There are two plausible lines that spring to mind. The first is to win the heart ace, unblock spades, lead a diamond to the ace, cash the spades, and play a club to your jack. Now, with no entries to dummy, you will need to find East with a doubleton club king. Not impossible, but unlikely.

The second line is to take the heart ace, play the spade ace, then overtake your spade jack to take the club finesse. Then you can try to guess diamonds. The problem here is that you have only gained your extra entry to dummy at the cost of a spade trick. Both of these lines fail. However, you may feel you should have spotted the winning line when I show it to you.

Win the heart ace, cash the spade ace and jack, then cut loose with a heart. After four rounds of hearts, the opponents will have to lead a spade or a club (West being void in diamonds) and give you the extra dummy entry you need.